124 JOHN GIBSON
wounding the Irish priest." The fellow then
said, " As he had only stabbed a priest, they have
liberated him." Soon after, my little, active waiter
called upon an English painter, my friend, and he
said to him that he had intentions of going to
London, that he had plenty of gold, and he asked
what might be the expense of his journey to
England.
Two years after, I enquired from a companion of
the person I have described what had become of
him, and he whom I addressed said that he had
heard that the little fellow, who had played so many
parts, had been fortunate at last, for he had been
informed that he had become married to a
"Signora Inglese" in London. This latter piece
of information I confess I considered to be untrue.
I heard after that this rogue confessed that
he thought the priest whom he stabbed was an
Italian, that he did not know that he was an
Irishman.
Sometime after I saw a procession going down the
Corso; it was a young man on an ass; upon his breast
was a label, on which you read that he was guilty
of carrying the prohibited knife. He was accom-
panied by a guard of soldiers on each side of him,
and by many people. He was started from the
Piazza del Popolo to the end of the Corso, and at
the Piazza Venezia there was a stage made on
which he was to stand for a short time to be looked